


The Ties that Bind

by mpatientdreamr



Category: Leverage
Genre: Gen, Minor Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-30
Updated: 2012-06-30
Packaged: 2017-11-08 22:05:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,090
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/448042
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mpatientdreamr/pseuds/mpatientdreamr
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What makes a crew?</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Ties that Bind

The best grifters are the ones with no one to keep them honest. The best thieves are the ones with no one to keep them grounded. The best hitters are the ones with no one to live for. The best hackers are the ones with no one to stop them. And the best masterminds? Well, they’re usually a combination of all of the above.

***Ties***

“Come now, love. What’s the first rule of the grift?” Papa asked, smoothing dark hair out of a lively, lovely face.

“Always know your mark,” the girl that would become Sophie Devereaux answered promptly.

That earned her a kiss on the nose as her Papa tucked the blankets tighter around her. “Right you are, Buttons. Now, off to dreamland, dearest.”

“Are you going out, Papa?” the girl asked, winding one end of his fancy white scarf around her hand worriedly. 

“Mm,” he said with a nod, eyes gleaming. “But Gran is right down the hall. I’ve just got to go speak to a man about a Michelangelo and tomorrow we’ll be off to Paris.”

“Promise?” she asked with a bit of a pout.

There was a pause there that would have tipped off a more seasoned con. But the girl was yet just a girl and her Papa pressed a kiss to her forehead as he murmured, “Of course I promise. You’re my Buttons.”

He lied. He never came home and Gran swept her away to Paris before the authorities came. She passed the trade down to her granddaughter but the first lesson of being a woman never had to be re-taught: Never put your trust in a man.

***Ties***

Mother Nan was screaming and the bicycle she’d taught Jamie to ride was crumpled on the sidewalk and Jamie was just still. And that was just wrong because Jamie was never still. He even twitched in his sleep.

But there they were: Mother Nan screaming and Jamie still, so still. Mother Nan had shoved Parker out of the way to get to him and she stayed where she was put because everything was just so wrong. Because Mother Nan wasn’t one of the Mothers that hit and Jamie wasn’t supposed to be still.

Then there was an ambulance ride and more screaming and then a house full of people dressed in black crying. And Jamie was still through it all.

“Mother Nan,” Parker said, carefully approaching the woman after everyone else had filtered away. “Where’s Jamie? I want Jamie.”

“Jamie’s gone,” Mother Nan said, the ice going tink, tink, tink in her glass as she swirled it before tossing it back. Her breath caught and she said, voice tight, “He’s flying with the angels now.”

“I want to fly, too,” Parker said, shuffling a step closer. ‘ _I want Jamie_.’

Parker fought not to flinch away as Mother Nan’s gentle hand smoothed a pale blonde lock out of her face. “Not yet, Parker. Someday but not too soon.”

Parker was gone from Mother Nan’s home by the end of the week. She never stopped wanting to fly even as she learned to want other things. And when she did high story work, she was never afraid. That was when she was closest to Jamie.

***Ties***

“What the hell is this?” Eliot hissed, cornering Aimee away from the other people at her reception.

“I can’t wait anymore,” she bit out, staring at the wall over his shoulder. “I’ve just realized you’re not the settlin’ kind and that’s what I want. The house and the kids and the husband with the nine-to-five.” _The husband that loves me enough to stay_.

“Aimee,” he started, only to be cut off when she shoved him. 

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “No, I gave you your chance. Now I’m done. Leave me alone.” She turned and hurried away, not stopping until she was at the door. “I hope you don’t die without finding a family, Eliot. You shouldn’t die alone.”

“Everybody dies alone,” he said quietly to the empty doorway.

So Eliot left again, because he was good at that, and channeled every unwieldy emotion coursing through his veins into anger and liberated a few third world countries. So was the beginning of the reputation of Eliot Spencer and as it grew, so did the walls he built around himself.

***Ties***

“And you be a good boy,” Nana said, pressing her weathered hand to his soft cheek.

Hardison gently pressed his hand to hers. “I will, Nana.”

“Hmph,” she said before being overtaken by a wracking cough. “I’ll never live to see the day,” she rasped before allowing him to slip the oxygen mask back over her mouth and nose. The amused yet stern glitter in her eye let him know she saw him but she loved him, anyway, flaws and all. 

“Don’t be like that, Nana,” he said, trying to will his strength and conviction into her. “You gotta stick around so you can see how good I’m gonna be.”

She pulled her mask down after a brief tug of war that she won because she’d always been ornery and he’d always been indulgent.

“Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t, sugar,” she gasped. “I had a good run and I’ma die knowing I left my mark.”

She weakly tapped his cheek even as she let him slide the mask back up.

She slipped away not an hour later, surrounded by every boy and man she’d ever put the fear of God into, and Alec Hardison disappeared into a haze of 1’s and 0’s. And, to an extent, he kept his word. He wasn’t just good; he was the best.

***Ties***

Nate Ford could remember the first time he held his son. Of course, lately that image was overlaid with the last time he held him. The only way not to remember was to drink and the drink lost him Maggie because it made him just like his father.

That was what had him sitting in an airport lobby, waiting for his shuttle. He was going home.

“Mr. Ford,” an impolite, harried man said, interrupting his quality time with his Scotch on the rocks.

That was okay, though, because as he spun his tale, only one word reverberated through his mind: Revenge.

And thus began the fall and rise of Nathan Ford, no longer an honest man.

***Ties***

The great ones have lost what ties them to the normal world, allowing them to submerge into the seedy underworld. The legends band together out of the ashes and form new ties.


End file.
